Today’s
The World Around Us
will be presented
in Turkish,
with subtitles in Arabic,
Aulacese (Vietnamese),
Chinese, English,
French, German,
Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Korean,
Malay, Mongolian,
Persian, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish
and Thai.

Also known as
the Green Mausoleum
or Green Dome,
the Mevlana Museum
in Konya,
Turkey is the shrine of
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi,
a Sufi mystic and poet
widely known as
Mevlana or Rumi.
Mevlana’s poetry
composed in Persian
is celebrated worldwide
for their beauty
and deep spirituality.

This museum
was also a dervish
(Sufi practitioner) lodge
of the Mevlevi order.
Mevlana (Rumi)
inspired the founding
of the Mevlevi order
of dervishes, or
the Whirling Dervishes,
named so because of
their ceremony
called Sema, in which they
remember Allah through
whirling movements.

Mevlana Museum,
with its blue dome,
is a site across
from Mount Aleaddin
encircled by mosques
and sepulchers.
Every year,
thousands of people,
regardless of what day it is,
come to visit him
to get something,
to get inspiration
to try to learn
the mysteries of humanity.

Today,
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
is a light of hope
in this pessimistic world
not only for Muslims
but for all humanity.
When you enter,
to the right of the door,
you see the sepulchers
on a platform.
It is said that in
he sepulchers, Mevlana’s
children’s grandchildren
and his father rest.

The mausoleum room
is highly ornamented
with beautiful calligraphy
and enameled reliefs.
The room honors
the dervishes who
accompanied Mevlana
and his family
in his journey to Turkey.
There are also monuments
to remember some
high-ranking members
of the Mevlevi order
on a raised platform.

The believers who come,
those who love him, made
wonderful works of art and
donated those art works
to the museum.
Most of the works of art
that you see in the museum
are creations of faith.
For example, as far as
I remember, engravings
on the round marble orbs
suspended from the ceiling,
as an artist
is not a work of art
that a person can make
for money or anything.
Hundreds of works of art,
paintings, calligraphy,
verses from the Qur’an,
passages from
the Great Qur’an are
exhibited there artistically.

The sarcophagus
of the mystic Mevlana,
covered with brocade,
is embroidered in gold
with verses
from the Qur’an.
The actual burial chamber
is below it.
His epitaph reads:
“Do not seek our tombs
on this earth – our tombs
are in the hearts
of the enlightened.”

Besides
Mevlana’s sarcophagus
are the sarcophagi
of his esteemed father,
the scholar
Baha ud-Din Walad,
and his pious son
Sultan Walad.
The Ritual Hall
beyond Mevlana’s tomb
was used by the dervishes
to perform the Sema,
the ritual dance.
The Sema was
accompanied by music
played with instruments,
such as the kemence,
which is
a kind of small violin
with three strings;
the halile, a small cymbal;
the daire, a kind of
tambourine; and others.
Mevlana himself,
a lover of music, used to
play these instruments.

Music held a great place
in his life.
One day as
he was roaming around
the streets of Konya,
he hears
sounds of hammering.
He was passing
by a jeweler.
When he hears the sound
of hammering, he enters.
The sound
of the jeweler’s hammer
working on gold
was like a musical melody.
He cannot leave his side;
he befriends him,
they become friends.

Mevlana was so entranced
by the sound
of the hammering
that it is said that
he blissfully stretched out
both of his arms and
started spinning in circles.
This is how the Mevlevi
tradition of Sema began.
The whirling is a practice
of turning inward and
of spiritual ascent toward
the Divine Perfect One.

His whirling ceremonies
are rituals that express
with music and movement
what people should do,
it is a rite.
Therefore,
whirling dervishes have
committed themselves
to humanity.
A whirling dervish
seeks a way
to be a perfect person
and tries to show the way.
During their
whirling rituals,
when they whirl
in the light of
the sound of a reed flute,
they teach and express
both that the world turns,
and that in this world,
a human should give what
he has taken from God
to the people
whom God created,
in other words, to God.

Mevlana was born
on September 30, 1207
in Belkh (Balkh) of
present-day Afghanistan.
His father
Baha ud-Din Walad
was a scholar.
Mevlana’s father, together
with his whole family
and a group of disciples,
moved and
settled in Karaman
in south central Turkey
for seven years.
There, the governing
administrator
showed great respect
and welcome
for Mevlana’s father
and Mevlana.
Then, as a result
of the insistent invitation
of the Seljuk sultan,
Ala’ al-Din Kayqubad,
Mevlana’s family
moved to Konya, Turkey,
and finally settled there.

The Seljuk sovereign also
knows that they came there
and enthusiastically
thinks of means
to attract them here.
He even threatens
the administrator there.
He (the administrator)
says, “They are guests,”
he says, “guests of God,
I cannot send them away.”

“I, in line
with my upbringing,
must show them respect,
this is in line
with my religion,
in line with my humanity,
this is my duty.”
Eventually,
they come here to Konya.
Of course,
when they come to Konya,
high state officials, as it is,
go out to welcome them
with a ceremony.

It was the Seljuk sultan
who offered
to provide a resting place
for Mevlana’s father
in his rose garden, which
would become the site of
Mevlana’s family shrine.
In life, Mevlana’s father
became the head
of a madrassa
(religious school).
When his father passed on,
Mevlana
inherited the position
as the teacher at age 25
while continuing
his Sufi training.

During the Seljuk rule,
he made great efforts
to establish Konya as a
center of arts and religion,
love of humans.
He did whatever he could
with his writing,
and teachings
so that people would live
in peace and harmony,
with commitment
of people to one another.
And his light
that started in Konya
spread out in the world.

Mevlana met many
of the great Sufi poets
who had significantly
shaped his thoughts.
For example, he met
the Sufi Master, Attar.
Attar saw the father
walking ahead of the son
and said,
“Here comes a sea
followed by an ocean.”

He gave the Mevlana
his book about
the soul’s entanglement
in the mundane world,
and their meeting
left a deep impression
on Mevlana
and his poetic works.
However, the most
important turning point
in Mevlana’s life
was when he met
the wandering dervish
Şems-i Tebrizi
(Shams-e Tabrizi) in 1244,
which completely
changed his life.

Then, coming
from Central Asia,
in particular from Tebriz,
he has a friend in order
to converse with him
on religious matters.
There are times
he doesn’t go out
in the streets for days,
worrying the folk.
His name is
Şems-i Tebrizi.
Şems-i Tebrizi
is a very close friend.
In fact,
he became his pupil,
should I say his Master,
should I say the one
to whom
he pours his heart out.

The following
is a brief account of
the meeting of Mevlana
and his cherished
spiritual mentor
Şems-i Tebrizi.

They lean on a place,
like this, they stay
side by side and lean,
they do not speak a word.
Folks look on excitedly,
await something
from them, but
they do not speak at all.
In the end, that person
(Şems-i Tebrizi)
excuses himself and leaves.

Now, the Hodja
(respected Muslim) there
asks, “Master,
you have been expecting
a guest for days,
was this the guest?”
“Yes.
You did not talk at all.”
“My son,” he says,
“those who understand
the language of words
need words.”
Meaning, “People who
can speak with the heart
have no need with
the language,” he says.
The one who came
is Illustrious Şems.

Mevlana lived
most of his life in Konya
and produced his works
there.
His major masterpiece is
the six-volume “Masnavi.”
It contains approximately
27,000 lines of
Persian poetry, containing
tales from everyday life,
Qur’anic revelations, hadith
(sayings of the Prophet),
and metaphysics.
Mevlana’s main theme
in his works
was his longing for,
and bliss in, the union
with the Divine Beloved.
“Masnavi,” according to
the poet himself, means
“the roots of the roots of
the roots of the Religion.”

As for Muslims,
Mevlana’s works have
been spoken of as a sort
of second Great Qur’an,
that is,
like the Turk’s holy book,
the Great Qur’an,
and became a book
to guide humans
to the way of Masnavi.

Mevlana's work
has been translated
into many languages
and studied by
people of many religions.

Today,
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
has become a
universal person visited by
people of every language,
every nation.
He no longer belongs
to Turkey, to Konya,
he belongs to the world.

In today’s
complicated world,
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi,
who gives hope to people,
contributes to
their development, living
in peace and harmony,
with his writings,
teachings, actions
and whirling rituals,
instilling in people
both love of Allah
and love of humans.
Continuously,
this has become
his manifesto to humanity.
He tried to instill
into people the feeling
of love for humanity,
peace and living together.

In Konya,
from time to time,
people came to
Mevlana’s ceremonies
from the four corners
of the world,
they visited him.
To visit him does not mean
only to watch the show.
Those who come to him,
come because
they see a light
of hope for humanity
that will find a remedy,
his thoughts.
When they visit him,
they have a feeling
that they will be
sort of inspired by him,
it seems to me.

Today, Mevlana’s example
of all-embracing love
is still a great inspiration
to the world.

Since he radiates light
to humanity,
some of that light should
reflect on our faces like
a mirror so that we too
can share out that light
around us,
we too can radiate.
What does that mean?
Let’s love these humans,
let’s be friends with them,
let’s be a remedy
to their sufferings.

Human salvation depends
on all kinds of people
understanding
one another,
loving one another,
no matter
what their thoughts,
no matter how they act,
this should be
the principle.

We thank Mr. Aslan
and Mr. Ateşöz for
being our guides about
the brilliant Mevlana and
the museum in Konya,
Turkey which honors him.
May Mevlana’s legacy
of peace and constant
remembrance of Allah
be awakened
in our own hearts today.

Thank you
for joining us today on
The World Around Us.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television for
Words of Wisdom,
after Noteworthy News.
May your life
be blessed and happy.